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Saturday, February 25, 2017

This
past week I finished a personal project that I have been working on
since June, 2014. It has been a long but rewarding journey. I don’t
have a finished product to share with the world, just a lot of
thoughts and insights about the process.

In 2014
a friend told me about a book called 1001 Albums You Must Hear
Before You Die, edited by Robert Dimery. As a fan of all kinds of
music, that sounded like a challenge. I began the process with an
online list available at
https://www.discogs.com/lists/1001-Albums-You-Must-Hear-Before-You-Die/18222.
For some reason, there are albums left off the chronological Discogs
list. For some reason it also ends with #975. I ended up buying the
2010 edition of the book (it has been updated with new entries since
then).

Many of
the albums are ones I have heard many, many times. There were others
that were completely new to me, some by artists I had never heard of.
Most fell someplace in the middle, artists and albums I knew about
but had never heard in their entirety. I listened to them through my
own collection, via Spotify (and yes, I’m aware of some of the
problems with Spotify and what artists make from it), and in a few
rare instances, through YouTube. Even with all of this there were
some, a very small percentage, that were simply not readily available
that I have not heard (considering the ‟before you die caveat”,
maybe I’m better off not actually hearing all 1001).

So I
embarked, starting with In The Wee Small Hours by Frank
Sinatra in 1955 and ending with It’s Blitz by the Yeah Yeah
Yeahs in 2009. I listened in order and gave everything at least two
listens (with a couple of exceptions for things that I really, really
didn’t like... I’m looking at you, Cannibal Corpse). I didn’t
stop listening to other albums, new stuff as it came out or as I
discovered it outside the confines of the list, or old favorites as
the whim occurred. But every week I would create a playlist of
whatever the next few of the 1001 albums came next.

The
introduction to the book gives some of their rationale, but of course
any list like this is open to debate and disagreement. Soundtracks
with multiple artists were left off, so Saturday Night Fever,
one of the best-selling albums of all time was not included. Purple
Rain was allowed because it is essentially a Prince album. It was
not just popular chart-toppers. The Velvet Underground and The
Stooges are everyone’s top examples of bands that influenced
everyone but sold no records when they were actually together, so
they were rightfully on the list.

It was a
list that included many genres, though Rock and it’s relatives were
the most represented. There were a few Jazz classics included. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis was there, of course. Thelonious Monk,
Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington are there, among a few others.
Country seems to be underrepresented to me, with a couple of live
Johnny Cash, two of Willie Nelson’s 70s records, a Merle Haggard
and a Loretta Lynn and very little else. Hair Metal was huge in the
80s and most of it is completely ignored. Disco, considering how omnipresent it was in the 70s, felt fairly absent with only two
albums by Chic really representing the genre. Nile Rogers went on to
be a major force in many contexts, so Chic is understandable, but no
Donna Summer? Maybe it’s because Disco was such a singles oriented
movement that there simply weren’t any whole albums that met
whatever criteria they used.

Rap and
Hip Hop were pretty well-represented and my ears are much more ready for it
now than at the time, so I’m glad for the opportunity to listen to
it with a more open mind than I originally had (and some thanks for
that goes to Ed Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree graphic novel
series for giving a social context I simply didn’t have before).
Public Enemy speaks of an experience I will never have but they gave
voice to that experience in ways that are important for me to hear.
Ice T spoke truths about society that are still true. Tribe Called
Quest and Missy Elliot made me want to groove. Ice Cube did nothing
for me at all.

I was
surprised at how many classic albums I had never heard in their
entirety. Records and CDs are expensive and until the advent of
streaming music services it just wasn’t possible. I’m familiar
with the hits of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but until this project I
had never listened to a full album. The same was true for Simon and
Garfunkel, and The Band, and many, many others. I consider myself a
huge music fan, but these are incredible gaps in my experience.

Listening
to it in order was fascinating. I could hear the various eras of music
and the sounds they encapsulated. I could also hear the slow changes
as they came about. The Stooges are usually mentioned as an early
influence on Punk, but I could hear how Glam led there as well. Then
the first album by The Dictators showed up and there was an
ear-opening moment of recognition of that being where a lot of the later
sound came from. It was also interesting to realize the very
different things that were happening at the same time and hearing
them juxtaposed gave a much larger picture of any given moment in
music history. One of the clearest examples of this for me was
listening to Thriller by Michael Jackson followed immediately
by Junkyard by the the Birthday Party (one of Nick Cave’s
early bands), both released in 1982. I have both of these on my Ipod
and am familiar with both, but I can’t think of too many more
dissimilar examples to show up back-to-back on the list.

Some
artists feel over-represented. The Beatles, obviously, though I am a
fan and understand this. Both Elton John and Stevie Wonder have a
raft of their 70s releases on the list, though it’s difficult to
argue with any of them. David Bowie is also well-represented, which
is no surprise.

I was
happy to see some of my personal favorite but more obscure artists
show up. Lloyd Cole and The Commotions Rattlesnakes is an all
time top favorite of mine and it was there (no other Lloyd Cole made
the list though he has released many, many albums). Japan has a
single entry with Quiet Life (the one I would have chosen). It’s interesting to note that KISS, a much more successful
and well known band, than Lloyd Cole and
Japan (and my favorite band as a teen), also has only one album on the list with Destroyer (also the one I would have chosen).

Some
choices seemed strange to me, based on personal taste and my own
knowledge of music. Could a Nine Inch Nails fan explain to me why The
Downward Spiral is here instead of Pretty Hate Machine? As
a huge fan of PJ Harvey I was happy to see Dry, Rid of Me,
and Stories From the City Stories From the Sea on the list.
All great albums, but for me To Bring You My Love is the
record where she branched out and really established herself as a
creative force (like Rattlesnakes, this is a desert island
disc for me, so maybe I can’t see it clearly). Nick Cave is on the
list a couple of times, as he should be, but I can name at least five
of his releases that aren’t represented that are better than the
Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus​ double album. Alice Cooper
only made the list in the context of the full lineup of the original
Alice Cooper Group and his solo work was ignored. With the exception
of Welcome to my Nightmare that’s probably how it should be.

Then, of
course there are the artists who hold a special meaning to me that
aren’t on the list, and as much as I might love them I understand
why they’re not here. The Sweet had thirteen top ten hits in
England and Europe, but other than Ballroom Blitz and Fox
on the Run they’re fairly unknown in the States. They were
mostly a singles band anyway, so even though Give Us a Wink
was a seminal album in my youth, I can’t say I’m surprised they
didn’t make the cut. Likewise bands like The Nails (who really
should be known for more than their one 80s hit 88 Lines About 44
Women), and The Vapors (Turning Japanese), and The Jazz
Butcher, and The Epoxies, all of whom I love, but even I can’t
really make an argument for inclusion.

As may
be expected, even though I listen to music from a lot of eras and
styles, I did find my interest in the list waning in the 90s and 00s.
While I am open to new things I recognize that very little is going
to move me in the same way that my earliest experiences of becoming a
fan did. The mid-70s up through the late 80s was my prime period of
discovery and it is the sounds of that time that resonate with me
most strongly. There are exceptions, of course. Both Nick Cave and PJ
Harvey are primarily 90s phenomenons for me, and they are easily in
my all time fave list. I really got into the White Stripes for about
three albums. But, in general, I didn’t discover a lot of new stuff
from the later era that moved me. This is not me saying that new
music sucks. I’m sure someone fifteen to twenty years younger than
me would have a very different experience with this list. Or fifteen
to twenty years older.

There is
so much more to this experience... Artists and genres I haven’t
mentioned. New-to-me things I loved, things I didn’t like at all.
Being reminded of stuff I used to like and had forgotten about.
Putting together the pieces and following the influences and drawing
the connections between. Finding new musical trails to follow.
Delving deeper into an artist’s catalog than just the one or two
albums represented here. Insights I had about the world and myself in
relation to the music.

The
biggest problem is now that I’m done I’m at a bit of a loss as to
what to listen to next. I’ve grown used to having my weekly
listening chosen for me.

Music is
so personal that there is no right or wrong or definitive ‟Best Of”
list. Certain sounds move you, or they don’t. They speak your
language, or they don’t. Part of my reason for working my way
through this was to expose myself to new languages and see what I
could learn. A lot of it moved me. A lot of it didn’t. But I am
richer for the experience. I have more music in my soul.